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Jack Thompson Misfires with Mortal Kombat Cease & Desist Letter
Categories: Cease & Desist • Character License Cases • Copyright Cases • Humour • Jack Thompson • Trademark Cases
The new Mortal Kombat Armageddon game has a built-in character editor. Gamers can mix and match clothing, body types, hairstyles and facial characteristics to create original characters to be played/fought in the game. The enterprising e-zeen Gaming Target posted this story providing character editor formulas for gamers to use to create famous, and infamous, characters including a formula for creating anti-game-violence crusader Jack Thompson.
Jack Thompson, apparently not quite understanding the character editor distinction, sent off a cease and desist letter to Midway, the game’s publisher, with the following contained therein:
“It has today come to my attention that the newly recently Mortal Kombat: Armageddon contains an unauthorized commercial exploitation of my name, photograph, image, and likeness within the game.”
“You are commanded to cease and desist immediately from the distribution of this game because of this unauthorized, illegal content…”
“It would appear that your company has done this at least in part because I sued you all in the Paducah school massacre case and further because I appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 when your company came out with your profane, violent, and idiotic Blitz: The League.”
To be clear, there is no crusading Florida lawyer character that is shipped with the game. On the presumption that Jack Thompson is aware of the Marvel v. NCSoft decision (see linked posts below) which is on point, this demand will likely just fade away once Mr. Thompson realizes what has happened here. The mere inclusion of a character editor does not, in itself, infringe anyone’s IP or personality rights any more than the manufacture and sale of Etch-a-Sketches does.
Sources: GamePolitics.com| Gaming Target | Gamasutra | joystiq | The Inquirer | GameSpot | EuroGamer | GWN | Pro-G | igniq.com
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1 comment
I love Mortal Kombat. It’s my favorite game ever. I hope that more games make fun of that lying crazy bum, Jack Thompson. He has involved himself in a fight and he is going to take insults from the other side and I think that definately more games need to make fun of him like this one does.
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